Industrial restructuring and regional policy

The paper examines the changing regional specialisation of UKemployment over the period 1971-94, analysing the extent towhich UK regional policy has altered the industrial structureof the Assisted Area regions, making them less vulnerable toeconomic change. All regional economies are found to have becomemore specialised, but industry has become less geographicallyconcentrated leading to a convergence of regional industrialstructures towards the national pattern of employment. Thesetrends are stronger in the Assisted Areas, and have been promotedby the operation of regional policy, but the major policy effectoccurs through the large-scale capital grants which have acceleratedthe employment decline of the traditional manufacturing industriesin which the Assisted Areas were relatively over-represented.     

The rise and rise of IFRS: An examination of IFRS diffusion

We seek to understand the ever-increasing push towards the international harmonization of accounting standards and particularly the inexorable rise of standards produced by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). While the primary justifications for the increasing recognition given to these standards (IFRS) are economic, we question whether the empirical evidence to date has yielded convincing support for these arguments. We therefore offer an alternative explanation for the origin and diffusion of IFRS that incorporates social and political factors. Outsourcing the manufacture of accounting standards to a single private agency appears to be a rational, lower cost option – lowering both economic and political costs for individual states as long as they continue to retain residual decision rights with respect to the adoption of IFRS. However, such outsourcing must also be perceived to be legitimate. IFRS confer institutionalized legitimacy because they possess three characteristics required of a technology for global governance. These are sponsorship by powerful interest groups/regulators, internationality and plasticity. We therefore conclude that the widespread diffusion today of IFRS can at best be only partially explained as an economically rational phenomenon. Rather, the demand for legitimate action in the face of tightly coupled and complex global markets is at least equally important in generating support for IFRS.     

The Soft Spaces of Local Economic Development

This article examines soft spaces, soft outcomes and soft infrastructure, trying to make some connections between them. We argue that soft spaces of governance constitute one of the most important but little understood components of contemporary sub-national economic development policy.     

Indian call centres and business process outsourcing: a study in union formation

In this exploratory study of union formation in the Indian call centre/business process outsourcing sector, the authors draw upon evidence from the first detailed survey of members of the recently formed UNITES, and from extensive interviews. This paper engages with mobilisation theory and analyses of trade union formation.     

Integer goal programming model for the implementation of multiple corporate objectives

The problem of long-range planning and investment project evaluation is complicated by the presence of multiple conflicting goals measured in incommensurable units, indivisibility of alternative projects, and the desire of management to consider mutually exclusive marketing-pricing strategies. The model proposed in this study attempts to allow for these complexities through the use of integer goal programming. It is the hope of the authors that this model will provide management with an additional decision-making tool for implementation of multiple corporate objectives.     

Full information estimation and stochastic simulation of models with rational expectations

A computationally feasible method for the full information maximum-likelihood estimation of models with rational expectations is described in this paper. The stochastic simulation of such models is also described. The methods discussed in this paper should open the way for many more tests of the rational expectations hypothesis within macroeconomic models.     

Monetary anticipation and the demand for money in the U.K.: Testing rationality in the Shock-Absorber hypothesis

The Carr-Darby shock-absorber hypothesis that unanticipated changes in the money supply cause changes in real balances but anticipated changes have a unit impact on the price level (and therefore leave real balances unchanged) is tested using two-step and joint estimation techniques. For the U.K., two-step methods appear to support the shock-absorber hypothesis, but the superior joint estimation technique decisively rejects the hypothesis, particularly the implicit rational expectations cross-equation restrictions.